


Dusty Boots and Daisy Chains

by Zesty_Bill_Clinton



Category: Fine Line - Harry Styles (Album), One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician), harry styles (mus
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Both of them are girls, Butch/Femme, Cowboy AU, F/F, Female Harry Styles, Girl Direction, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Taylor Swift, lesbian pulp fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28369383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zesty_Bill_Clinton/pseuds/Zesty_Bill_Clinton
Summary: “Harry isn’t like any of the girls you’ve known all your life. She wears denim and dusty old boots. She smokes thin cigarettes out the window of her room and you watch the smoke wisping up from the first floor.”
Relationships: Harry Styles/Taylor Swift
Kudos: 4





	Dusty Boots and Daisy Chains

You see her arrive in town from your small yard. She doesn’t look like a she from 20 yards, as she waves to the trailer driver who dropped her off, grinning with half a wit.  
You see her arrive in the bar later that night. Her boots are covered in the dust of your small town but her eyes are blue like a Montana winter sky. She’s sitting in a booth and you’re waiting for her to come up and order. But she just sits there, staring at her hands and picking at her cotton shirt. You come up to her with a beer and you say it’s on the house, though you’ve already put what little spare money you have of your own into the cash drawer for this stranger.  
“Thanks darlin” She says and you realize then that they’re a she, and you feel like twisting your fists in the folds of your skirt as your stomach swills.  
“What’s brought you here?” You ask, and she answers. The dude ranch, outside town. She’s joining the roundup in four weeks time.  
“Where you staying till then?” You ask, and she shakes her head. You remember the room at the end of the hall, and turn to your father playing pool with the same men he’s known his whole life.  
You tell your father about the stranger who’s waltzed into town, and he doesn’t like the looks of her. But ten minutes and a shared chuckle later the newest resident of small town Montana is sleeping in your guest bedroom.  
“What’s your name anyway, stranger?”  
“You can call me Harry”  
“Ok Harry, I’m Taylor”

Harry isn’t like any of the girls you’ve known all your life. She wears denim and dusty old boots. She smokes thin cigarettes out the window of her room and you watch the smoke wisping up from the first floor.  
You are hanging out the clothes on the line before your shift when she comes up to you. She’s been helping out at the bar to earn her keep. Mainly lugging cases in from the truck and washing glasses at the end of the night. But now she’s got the morning off with Pa’s permission and she’s spent it in the garden with a beat up paperback in hand.  
She sneaks up on you, peeking between some sheets like a stage curtain with the grin of a madman.  
“Howdy taylor” she says, like it’s a surprise she’s come to see you. (and maybe it is, because though you opened the door for her it’s not like you’re suddenly best friends.  
“Hi” you say carefully, because careful’s all there is with Harry.  
she seems to nod, like that’s all she needed, and passes through the curtain like a breeze past you. Her hand grazes against your elbow and you feel yourself leaning into it, a subtle pull towards her broad hand as it traces the pale sheets fluttering in the wind around you.

You glance at the book clutched at her waist, the pages faded to a dusty beige. There are two women illustrated on the front. One with dark hair and hooded eyes, her lips are drawn into a broad smile that reminds you of the face in front of you, smiling in the afternoon sunlight. The other woman on the cover is blonde, like you, yet neatly coiffed in a style you’d never master. You prefer to leave your hair lose, letting it fall in coiled curtains around your shoulders so you can feel the wind twist it’s fingers in it as it blows in off the plains.  
“Is it any good?” you ask, gesturing at the tome in her hands. Her eyes glint mischievously before she answers.  
“I’ve read it a couple times” she says. “I just can’t get enough of it”  
You nod and swallow the lump suddenly forming in your throat (you wonder why you’re so nervous).  
“What’s it about?”  
Harry gets a wistful look as her mouth moves to speak. “It’s a love story” she says, walking past you to lean on the white picket fence, watching as you follow with careful steps.  
“It’s an unconventional love story about two people who aren’t supposed to be together. Yet they keep on loving each other against all odds, to the very end”  
“Like Romeo and Juliet!” you say, and every fiber of your being is suddenly taut, striving towards impressing Harry, the surprisingly bookish cowhand.  
“You’ve read shakespeare?” she asks  
“well we had to read it in class… but I really liked it!”  
“You’d make such a lovely Juliet” Harry says like saying something like that doesn’t make your stomach flip. You try and think of something to say, but you feel mute.  
Fortunately, Harry distracts herself, checking her watch.  
“Jeez, I gotta go in to town to grab a coupla things.” You nod sagely, she’s probably bored of you anyway by now.  
“But hey, do you want to read it?” she holds out the book and your fingers barely graze it.  
“we can talk about it later if you want” she says. “but just don’t leave it lying around. you’ll get why once you start reading”  
You nod, and she presses the book into your waiting palms. A “thank you” dies on your lips as she hops the fence, dust swilling around her boots as she heads towards town, yet even in the glare of the sun you see Harry wink back towards you.

You look down at the cover and it reads “Spring Fire”.  
You sit down in the grass with your back against the picket fence and crack open the already well worn spine, the rest of the laundry falling to the wayside.


End file.
